London 2012 Olympics: British table tennis No 1 Paul Drinkhall ready to turn tables on Chinese for medal success

After all the years, months and weeks thinking about the Olympics, the day has
finally come. My dream of getting a medal in the table tennis men’s singles
begins on Saturday. It has been a surreal feeling all week.

Medal hunt: Paul Drinkhall is out to prove that the Chinese are beatablePhoto: PA

By Paul Drinkhall

1:00AM BST 28 Jul 2012

This may surprise some people who do not consider table tennis to be one of the big medal hopes for Great Britain this summer, but I truly believe that I can beat anybody in the world - and that includes the Chinese.

That’s not to say I’m not aware of how difficult it will be at the Games. China’s players are the favourites in table tennis, and with good reason: they have won 20 out of the 24 gold medals since the sport came into the Olympics in 1988 and still dominate the world rankings.

Why are they so good? It comes down to a lot of factors. One thing is their knowledge of the game. They have been at the top for years and that means all of their coaches are previous Olympic and world champions.

That knowledge is passed down all the way from the top. Their work ethic and training schedule, especially from such a young age, is also exceptional. From the age of five or six, the Chinese players are based at the national centre or in regional centres where they are already hitting table-tennis balls non-stop for five or six hours a day.

That just beds in such a solid technique and style. By the time they reach the age of 15 or 16, they are so well developed that they are almost like a veteran player already with the amount of hours they have had on the table. Their consistency is because they have trained for so many hours from such a young age.

In Europe, you obviously have school and it is not until 15 or 16 that you really start training to that same extent. If you told that to the Chinese, they would probably just laugh and say that is too late but our system does work; we have had European and World Champions. And I also do not think a medal is out of my reach.

I am seeded 46th so there is little expectation from the rankings but I think most of the top players would not want me in the draw. At the test event, I took the first game against the Chinese world number two and pushed him close in the second and third.

The top players know that when I play at my best, I can push all of them. The moment has arrived and I am focussed on causing some upsets.

I feel like I am playing the best table-tennis of my career. I am certainly in the best shape I have ever been in both physically and mentally. I have just got to make sure that I do not allow the occasion to get the better of me. There are going to be 4,000 people inside the ExCeL centre. It is going to be a different sort of environment than we are used to and we have to get over that quickly.

We have to use the crowd to our advantage and not let them put us off because, in one way, it will be quite a frightening experience. What all the Team GB athletes have to understand is that this is another tournament, another match, something we practice for all our lives, so there is no reason why we should let the nerves affect us.

Our six-strong team of players arrived at the Olympic Village on Tuesday and first impressions could not have been any better: everything is just amazing.

The atmosphere is incredible; every time you see someone from the Great Britain team, even if you have never met them before, it’s ‘Hello, how are you doing and good morning’. You can definitely feel the vibe around the village that everybody is raring to go.

The facilities are even better than I expected, from the apartments to the transport which has all been very smooth. It is strange because when you are in the village, with so much going on, you can sometimes almost forget that it is the Olympics. But when you get on the team bus, go to the venue and see all your rivals training, the importance of a tournament that you have spent years working towards really hits home.